Death of a Doll Read online

  “What’s this?” He fingered the slip of paper pinned to the lapel. It was an oblong of pale pink with a serrated edge, and had obviously been torn from a pad. It was familiar in an indeterminate way, and he decided he had seen something like it on Roberta’s desk. Fancy business for the peasant. America the Beautiful. He frowned at the pencilled scrawl. The peasant’s code for Ruth Miller, electric blue, two piece. Wiggle, wiggle, 2 dash 8277. He hung the suit on the back of a chair. “So that’s that. Anything in the pockets?”

  “What do you think I am!”

  “You heard me. Anything in the pockets?”

  “No… Tom says it was written on her that she was sick. I told him she was, it seemed the nicest thing to say with a child present. I knew at once that he didn’t read newspapers or listen to gossip. And I don’t think he does much work for Hope House. The clothes in the shop had a hard-working-housewife look. So when he didn’t say anything, I knew he didn’t know anything.”

  “Too bad. Didn’t he ask for a claim check?”

  “No. He’s very unsophisticated. She was carrying a suitcase and she didn’t give him an address. She said she was going away.”

  “Going away. She meant running away… No, she wouldn’t give an address. Anything else?”

  “Her hands shook, she dropped things on the floor, and she kept looking back at the street. He thought she had a fever. Mark, she paid for it in advance. She said she might not be able to call for it for a long time and asked him to take good care of it.”

  He lowered his face to the mug and drank slowly. “Good work,” he said. “Finish your sherry and get along home. That’s a nice job you did.”

  “What are you going to do with the suit now that you’ve got it?”

  “Look at it. I don’t know. Just look at it. Maybe it will say something to me.”

  Bessy put her empty glass on the table with a reluctant sigh that got her nothing. When she realised that, she became crisp. “Why don’t we go, Beulah? We have shopping to do.”

  “In this weather?” Mark asked. “You’re crazy. Go home and sit by the fire. I’ll see you later.” He took them to the front door, saw them flounder against the wind, and closed his eyes and the door simultaneously. “Together,” he said to the doctor, “they have about ten thousand a year and nobody to spend it on, but they’ll walk to the shopping centre because gentlemen will pity them and offer strong arms. I’m going down to Foy’s.” He made a bundle of Ruth Miller’s relics, all but one. “I’ll leave the suit here,” he said. “Bad weather out.”

  “Following instructions?” Dr Kloppel observed softly. “Taking care?”

  Mark slammed the door and walked toward Hope House because he felt like looking at it. The snow was thick on the sidewalk, and his footsteps made no more sound than sneakers on a concrete floor. He plodded steadily around the corner and turned. A truck was drawn up before the neat, brick building and two men were unloading Christmas greens. A tall spruce, branches of hemlock, two wooden crates of holly.

  The front door opened and a figure appeared on the top step. He slowed down, although it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t look in his direction, she was telling the men with large gestures that their entrance was through the courtyard gate. It was Kitty Brice, and even from a distance he could see that she looked ill. Her face was grey-blue and she stood as if she were bent under a burden.

  Joy to the world, he quoted to himself. Peace on earth, good will to men. Make way for the cops who’ve got to kill a girl they don’t know because that’s what she did to a girl they don’t know either.

  He found a cab and rode up to Blackman’s, where he used the employees’ entrance. In a few minutes he was in the toilet-goods stockroom.

  Moke and Poke said the mask was Ruth’s. They knew it at once. When they had finished making the mole, they’d knotted the thread on the wrong side because they didn’t have scissors; no girl in her right mind ruins her teeth biting thread. They showed him the knot. Even if somebody had copied it, it wouldn’t have that kind of knot. It was theirs, and hers.

  He returned it to his bundle while they stood stiffly at attention, their eyes round with curiosity. But they didn’t speak until they were spoken to.

  “By the way,” he said, “what about that prize for guessing? How many names did you get?”

  Moke said she got seventeen, and Poke got twenty-nine because she was studious.

  “And Miss Mainwaring, the winner?”

  “She got thirty-four. She’s a one!”

  “She certainly is. But so are you; I don’t know how you did it. People keep telling me that everybody was unrecognisable.”

  “Oh, that was in the beginning. When it got near the time for unmasking, a lot of people gave themselves away. It was fun doing that. You know, laughing natural instead of like a hyena.”

  To prove that he did know, he laughed like a hyena himself. They joined him. When that was over, he said, “Do you remember any of the names you got?”

  “Yes, sir. We all got the same ones, except Mainwaring. Her extras were people we didn’t know so well no matter how they laughed. The clucks.”

  “Did you get anybody I know, including the clucks?”

  Moke looked wanly sinister. “I’m right behind you. Sure. Everybody you know. But you can’t detect nothing from that.”

  “Who says I can’t? Suppose somebody went upstairs for a while and came down just before the unmasking? Somebody you didn’t guess until the last minute, because you hadn’t seen her for an hour or so?”

  Poke answered with dignity. “I’m right behind you, too. The only ones we guessed at the last minute were people who wouldn’t know Ruth Miller if they fell over her. Take my word for it, that’s indubitable.”

  For a few seconds he was more disappointed than he would admit, even to himself. But then, without warning, a door slowly opened in the back of his mind, a door that had been closed and camouflaged. He could almost see a face peering through, like the picture Bessy had drawn. It made him whistle and kept his mouth open after the whistle had stopped. Moke and Poke watched him fearfully. He didn’t see them, he was seeing someone else. His girl… She had staggered her appearances, dressing for the part each time. She had gone upstairs as herself, done her work, and returned wearing Ruth’s mask. Then upstairs again, then down as herself once more. If she used the second floor as a base, she could do it half a dozen times. She wouldn’t be missed, not gone long enough at a stretch. She had broken it up, spread it out; there one minute, not there the next. No wonder the kids had guessed all the ones he knew. Her name was probably on every list, the early ones and the late. No wonder, as Moke said, he couldn’t detect nothing from that… The unholy devil.

  “You haven’t seen me today,” he warned. “I’m always saying that to you two, but it’s only temporary. Pretty soon now I’m going to flaunt you in the eyes of the world.” Then he was gone.

  After leaving Dr Kloppel’s, Bessy and Beulah returned to the only location they were sure of, the Fifth Avenue entrance to Blackman’s. They planted themselves in the centre of the teeming sidewalk while they discussed their next move. They were oblivious to everything but their own words. Because they were among strangers, they considered themselves alone; and because they were alone, they shouted.

  Hadn’t they found the suit? Hadn’t they shared Mark’s confidence with that wonderful old man? Unmarried, settled, still earning, and broad-minded about his bookcase? Next time it wouldn’t be sherry. Now all they had to do was find the eye doctor.

  “But Mark says to forget about him,” Bessy objected.

  “I only want him for our record,” Beulah said. “Also it would give us an added interest in the end.”

  “The end,” Bessy repeated with pleasure. Her sweet voice rose happily. “The end. That’s Ossining. They’ll give her anything she wants for her last dinner. Chicken, I suspect. And the lights grow dim when they turn the juice on.”

  A substantial matron with two children, blocke
d in her efforts to reach Blackman’s entrance, gave Bessy one long look and left the neighbourhood.

  In a short time they were alone, like two treacherous rocks in the middle of a stream before which even the waters divide. Only a small and very thin Santa Claus stood fast. He rang his begging bell without a pause, but he put one gnarled and dirty hand over his money kettle.

  “Chicken,” Beulah said reflectively. “I’m hungry. I didn’t eat all the breakfast I wanted. Let’s go to that place for something, and then we can try the man the girl told us about.”

  Bessy knew what she meant. They turned and walked rapidly in the wrong direction, reversed, and started out again.

  The girl at the orange-drink stand knew them at once, but it was the lunch hour and she had little time for talk. As soon as she could, she left her griddle and urn and came over. “Was it him?” she asked.

  They confessed that they hadn’t found out. “My friend,” Beulah said, “began to feel nervous, so we went home. But we’re going there after we’ve had something to eat.”

  “The hamburger’s good today,” the girl said. “Gee, I hope it’s him.”

  They ate two of everything as before, and also as before they promised to report.

  This time the dark, uncarpeted stairs looked cleaner, and the upper hall, when they reached it, was furnished with a strip of worn linoleum and a bamboo table holding a lamp. A door at the rear said, “Dr John Thomas Eagan. Walk In.”

  There was no secretary, no starched office nurse. The small, white-painted room held another bamboo table, a lamp, and three chairs. A second door, half open, led to an inner office. They heard a sound like feet coming to the floor from a height, presumably the height of a desk. “Doctor?” Beulah called.

  He stood in the door of the inner office, a young man in a clean white coat, with dark skin and hair. Beulah remembered him. He’d been scowling before, but now he was smiling. She stepped back and took Bessy’s arm.

  “I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake,” she said. “I was looking for a doctor who treated my niece’s eyes but I don’t think—”

  “Sit down,” he suggested. “I may be able to help you.” He brought the chairs forward. “What is your niece’s name?”

  “But she—I’m quite sure I’ve come to the wrong place. I was passing by, and for a minute I thought—I’m sorry, but I’m sure I’m wasting your time.”

  They saw him look them over, saw his smile widen. “It’s a bad day,” he said smoothly. “Why don’t you rest a bit before you start out again?”

  “We,” Bessy began. “We—”

  “You’re looking for your niece’s doctor, I got that. And it’s very interesting, because I don’t have many nieces. How did you happen to find this office? Not many people come here unless they know about it beforehand… Who is your niece?”

  “Ruth Miller,” Bessy said in a high voice. “She was murdered.”

  “Please sit down,” he said.

  The contents of Mark’s bundle, neatly arranged on Foy’s desk, brought respectful and hearty laughs from the men who put their heads inside the door when they heard music. They were the ones who didn’t know. After they’d been told, they creaked down the bare corridors as if they were walking in a mausoleum.

  “You’re a good guy,” Foy said to Mark. “If everybody in your profession was like you, we’d have better luck all around. Most of your pals are glory hogs but you give what you’ve got. I appreciate it. Now how in hell can I break this?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s got to be quick.”

  “Even I know that.” Foy took another cigar. “As long as that Harris girl is alive, she’s a menace to somebody. She knows too much, saw and heard too much. Do you think she told you everything?”

  “All she could.”

  “That’s a good man outside her door. Jones. Jones knows how to keep his head. He won’t let anybody in there that hasn’t the right.”

  “And who’s to say who has the right?”

  Foy slumped.

  Mark went on. “It wouldn’t change the outcome if the blind youngster heard somebody enter. A crack on the head, a pillow on the face, and she’d be quiet. Then Harris, same as Miller, plus a suicide note to clear up the tag ends. A farewell confession. I didn’t figure that one out myself, I got it from a respectable woman. It’s respectable female reasoning, and as we’re dealing with allegedly respectable females, it’s probably accurate… I’m going back to Hope House when I leave here, and hang around. I want to watch the girls. I may offer to help them trim their Christmas tree, but whatever the excuse, I’m staying. Also, I’m going down to the kitchen and beg a cup of coffee from the help. Want to see what they look like.”

  “You’re holding something out!” Foy accused him eagerly.

  “Nope. You’ve got it all. This will be an ordinary casing of the joint. If this were London, I’d be a grimy individual in work clothes with a bit of paper identifying me as the waterworks come to look at the geyser. Here I’ll be myself, a nice young man with a job too big for him, and may I have a cup of coffee, please. I want to look for things like back stairs.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I never have.” That was the truth, but not all of it. “And exits. To the courtyard, for instance. And does the elevator run to the basement or not. Things like that.”

  “I’ll put a man in the courtyard right away,” Foy said firmly.

  “Not yet, please. Maybe later. She won’t make a break for it now. She knows we haven’t spotted her. She knows a break will give her away, and she also knows we can find her. That’s what I’m afraid of, finding her, the wrong way. She’d gamble on a break if she thought she was caught, and we’d find her in the river.”

  “East,” Foy said thoughtfully, “you know what could happen if you had a piece of rubber hose in your pocket that somebody put there by mistake when you weren’t looking? It could slip out of your hand. We’d both feel bad about it, too, and I’d give you loud and prominent hell.”

  “Shame, shame, and you the father of a young girl!”

  “Yeah. Sixteen. Seventeen next July. I saw girls that age in that place.” Foy treated himself to a picture of Miss Maureen Foy as she had looked that morning at breakfast. A little bit of heaven, that’s what, a wild Irish rose; eyes of Killarney, voice of a dove, fair as the clouds that kiss the hills above Kildooey… He dragged his thoughts back to the business at hand and looked with loathing at the crinkled, rosebud mouth that smiled up from the desk.

  “I don’t know why we can’t lock somebody up,” he snapped. “I don’t like to be diddled by a girl!”

  “But this is no ordinary diddling, and no ordinary girl. She looks and acts average, and that’s why she has us by the throat. This one is as smart as anything that ever went through your hands. She did her stuff like a mathematician. In the end, when we take her aside for a little heart-to-heart, we’ll probably find that her schedule ran something like this. She got hold of the extra costume, because she knew all about it. She hid it—my guess is the second-floor bathroom or packroom; easy to get at. She was lucky about the chef’s accident, that gave her a break; but she could have worked without it. She could have followed Ruth to her room after the party. A blind witness, and a disguise to boot, in case she was seen in the halls. No involuntary exclamation from anybody, no name cried out in terror. Oh, she’d have worked it… She saw her big chance in the chef’s accident, and gambled. There was a lot of confusion then, and the whole thing ate up a lot of time. She eased Miller into position under Plummer’s eyes when the other girls turned Plummer down. She’d had Miller spotted from the first, probably because Miller appeared with April who was too easy to identify. The blind have a posture all their own. Even if Miller had stayed away from the party, she was marked for death. In one way or another, sooner or later. But the gamble worked… She went upstairs and waited, and I think she locked Fister’s door for added safety. Too close to the first floor. So Miller, poor little devil, had to go
on up to Brady’s. And in Brady’s we had the business. Knockout with music box, trade masks. Then a quick look-see down the hall, another safety measure. But the elevator was ringing then, and that might bring trouble. So she took the elevator over, she didn’t dare not to, and ferried Mrs Marshall-Gill to the main floor. She returned at once to eighth, Marshall-Gill watched the indicator. Back in Brady’s she finished her job, and I don’t have to tell you what that was, went down to Miller’s room and opened the window. Getting set for the suicide angle, see?” He gave his theory of the changed masks, the series of appearances as Ruth Miller and herself. “I’ve gone over that routine until I’m sick of it,” he said. “It’s clear, it fits with what I’ve been told. So what? So that’s all it is. A piece of reasoning that fits.” He got up and fought with the sleeves of his overcoat. “Bye-bye for now.”

  “Can you think of anything you’d like me to do?” Foy asked unhappily.

  “Not right now. Call you later. Maybe something will happen to me.”

  “In the Hope House kitchen?”

  “Could be.”

  Jewel was clumsily working the switchboard when he arrived. She did her best not to see him. The lobby was empty but the lounge was crowded. He saw that much through the glass doors.

  “I’ll wait,” he said carelessly to Jewel. She nodded.

  He watched her awkward fingers and stolid shoulders. Behind him the lounge door opened and closed, but no one came out. Presently Jewel left the board and stood before him.

  “New job?” he asked genially. “Or is Kitty sick?”

  “Sick. She went upstairs for her medicine.” She waited for him to go on. He was waiting, too, wondering if a few minutes with Jewel would net him more than an immediate trip to the kitchen, when a call came in. She left him with alacrity.

  As soon as she spoke, he knew the call was important. Her speech was painfully correct and she tried not to look at him, but in spite of herself her eyes kept returning to his face.

  “Yes, sir; yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll tell him, he’s here. I’ll tell him right away, sir. At once.”